I’m not going to lie. Before I started working at The Krazy Coupon Lady, I had some assumptions about how I’d determine the cheapest grocery store. For example, I just assumed the prices were way cheaper at Walmart because I tend to schlub it up when I shop there — versus how I tend to look a little more presentable when I shop at Target.
I also couldn’t imagine the prices at Target could be cheaper than Food4Less or Kroger.
Guess what?
I was wrong in so many ways.
Finding the absolute cheapest grocery store means doing away with all your assumptions and taking a hard look at the actual prices. But that can get overwhelming — fast. Luckily, we’ve got a whole team of KCL researchers spread across the country who have gathered the pricing data for you. And today, I’m going to show you what those numbers tell us in terms of which grocery store is the cheapest overall.
A few things to know before we get started. First, we looked only at stores that carry brand names. While stores like Aldi and Trader Joe’s might offer some significant savings, the fact that they don’t carry brand names makes for a messy comparison.
Second, remember that prices can vary by region, store, and items — like eggs and produce — go through seasonal price fluctuations every year. If your state charges sales tax on food, you’ll also want to account for that additional expense.
But as far as base pricing goes, these are the cheapest grocery stores in 2024.
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First, let’s take a look at the 16 items in our theoretical shopping cart:
To find the cheapest grocery stores in America, we looked at a typical shopping cart filled with these 16 common staples. We also decided on an exact quantity to use for our calculations. Picking an exact quantity helps us to better compare prices across stores, even when product sizes may differ.
For example, you’re never going to be able to buy just a 2.5-pound bag of frozen chicken breasts at Costco. But once you figure out the price per ounce for them at Costco, you can easily calculate what it would cost for a 2.5-pound bag at Costco.
So here’s what’s in our theoretical shopping cart:
Bananas, 1 pound
Bisquick All-Purpose Baking Mix, 40 ounces
Bounty paper towels, 662 square feet
Boneless, skinless chicken breasts (frozen), 2.5 pounds
Coca-Cola, 12-pack of cans
Eggs, 1 dozen
Honey Nut Cheerios, 10.8 ounces
Heinz ketchup, 32 ounces
Honeycrisp apples, 1 pound
Jif creamy peanut butter, 16 ounces
Orange juice, 59 ounces
Potatoes, 5 pounds
Ritz crackers, 13.7 ounces
Toilet paper, 190.7 square feet
Tyson fully cooked chicken nuggets (frozen), 32 ounces
White rice, 32 ounces
Now that we know what we’re shopping for, let’s check out America’s cheapest grocery stores, starting with the absolute least expensive (Sam’s Club, $69.43 total cost) and ending with the most expensive (Food4Less, $99.24 total cost). We’ll also show you the cheapest products at each store based on their unit price, in case you want to pick and choose where you shop to get the best value!
TIP: Download The Krazy Coupon Lady app to get all the best grocery deals.
1. Sam’s Club has the lowest total cart price of $69.43.
If you were to buy all 16 items at Sam’s Club — in the exact quantities we specified in our list — you’d pay just $69.43 in total (plus tax, of course).
But wait, don’t you have to buy in bulk at Sam’s Club? How can you just buy one 6-ounce container of Yoplait yogurt like we listed?
You’re not wrong. We did a little math to figure out the price per unit of each item at Sam’s Club, then multiplied to get it in the quantity we specified. That way, we can compare the prices at Sam’s to the prices at a non-warehouse location like Walmart.
Sam's Club has the best price on Heinz ketchup per ounce.
Frozen Tyson chicken nuggets are cheaper at Sam’s Club than Costco.
Sam's Club lower price beats Costco by $0.20 and was just enough to tie H-E-B in the Tyson nuggets category.
Sam's Club ties with Costco on lowest price for Bounty Paper Towels.
Related: Check out our picks for the best things to buy at Sam’s Club.
2. Costco comes in second cheapest price for our theoretical shopping cart: $71.81.
Since you’re loading up on bigger quantities when you shop at Costco, you’re getting a better value than you do at stores like Walmart. We calculated what you’d pay for all 16 items and it came out to $71.81, which is $2.38 more than you’d pay at Sam’s Club.
Costco is a great place to pick up Coca-Cola to pay less per can.
Costco beat competitors with their price on Jif Creamy Peanut Butter.
You gotta buy peanut butter in bulk to get the lowest price.
Cheapest toilet paper is at Costco.
While $0.01 may not sound like much, it adds up when it comes to toilet paper.
Costco is the best price on Honey Nut Cheerios.
When we crunched the numbers, we found that Costco is best price on General Mills’ Honey Nut Cheerios. What happened to you, Walmart?
Now, in all reality, Costco doesn’t typically have the cheapest cereal prices when you factor in sale prices at grocery stores. While the Costco base price for cereal might be lower, if you wait for a sale at WinCo, Food4Less, or H-E-B, you’re likely to get an even better price than Costco can offer. These sales tend to rotate based on brand, so for Honey Nut Cheerios, you’d want to wait until there’s a General Mills sale.
3. Walmart comes in third behind Costco and Sam’s Club with their shopping cart total: $88.39.
Wally World and Target are quite competitive. However, if you were to purchase all 16 items in the specified quantities at Walmart, you’d pay about $88.39, which leaves Target toward the bottom of our list.
Walmart tied Sam's Club for the lowest price on Bisquick All-Purpose Baking Mix.
4. WinCo Foods came in fourth place with their shopping cart total: $89.08.
You could pack up your cart with all 16 items and spend $89.08 at WinCo. We found five areas where their prices are unbeatable.
WinCo has the best price for bananas.
When we break down the price per unit, WinCo is one of the cheapest places to shop across many categories. Their winning streak started with bananas.
WinCo beat their competitors on eggs.
Winco's $1.88 per dozen large eggs was too good for any of the competitors to beat.
WinCo has the best price on Honeycrisp apples.
Hands down, at $0.98 per pound, WinCo has the lowest price on Honeycrisp apples. Next closest, is Costco at $1.47.
Related: We did the digging for you to find out if WinCo is cheaper than Walmart.
WinCo takes first place for their price on potatoes.
WinCo's $0.26 per pound on potatoes was almost half the price of the second place winner Costco.
WinCo has lower-than-average prices on orange juice (tied with Sam's Club).
5. Our H-E-B shopping cart total came in second to last place: $89.19.
If you’re buying all 16 items at one store, the next least expensive option is H-E-B. You’ll be able to fill up your cart for a grand total of $89.19.
At $0.50 per pouncd, H-E-B did tie Costco and Walmart for the bananas category.
6. Target takes sixth place for their shopping cart total: $91.80.
If you were to buy all 16 items in the exact quantities we specified, you’d pay $91.80. And that’s before applying your Circle Card discount, which could push the price down even lower to $87.21. (Still not as low as the Sam’s Club total in Tip #1 above, though.)
7. Food4Less came in last place (again) for their theoretical shopping cart total: $93.56.
Despite having “Less” in their name, we were surprised to see that Food4Less came in last place of all the stores on this list (for the second year in a row) for their shopping cart: $93.56.
Unfortunately, Food4Less didn't win any category. However, they tied with WinCo for Tyson Chicken Nuggets and Jif Creamy Peanut Butter. They did take second in the eggs category, losing to WinCo by $0.11.
8. And the honorable mention goes to Kroger.
Kroger doesn’t have the cheapest prices on any singular item of the ones we compared. Purchasing all 16 items at Kroger would cost you $94.61, which is just a $1.05 more than the Food4Less (which Kroger owns).
Let’s recap: Sam’s Club is the cheapest overall for our theoretical shopping cart, but you’ll need a membership to shop there.
If you’re looking to squeeze the absolute MOST value out of every dollar you spend on groceries (or at least for the 16 common grocery items we checked), you’re going to want to try out Sam’s Club. Thanks to all the membership deals out there, you can join Sam’s Club for as low as $25 a year right now (through May 31, 2024). And Costco’s membership is only a little higher, at $60 for a whole year.
But because inflation’s still high, budgets are tight, and you might not have the money to engage in bulk shopping, we determined your next cheapest option for grocery shopping out of the stores on our list is Walmart or WinCo.
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